1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light weight, hand-held cutting tool and more directly to a slat ripper for use in easily narrowing standard widths of fencing slats to narrower slats of a predetermined, uniform width.
2. Description of the Related Art including Information Disclosed under 37 C.F.R. 1.97 and 1.98
A search of the prior art located the following United States patents which are believed to be representative of the present state of the prior art: U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,626, issued Dec. 27, 1977, U.S. Pat. No. 4,096,631, issued Jun. 27, 1978, U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,563, issued Mar. 27, 1984, U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,756, issued Oct. 3, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,894, issued Dec. 10, 1996, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,001, issued Oct. 24, 2000.
Cutting tools in the art typically involve multiple parts and are cumbersome or unwieldy for use by a single operator in construction site applications. The prior art also involves having to adjust blade position according to the application, and often lack any self-contained channel alignment for the material to be ripped or cut.
Absent the cited art, means for ripping slat also include manually measuring and then marking the width desired and cutting along a line drawn on the slat using scissors, shears, or a standard utility knife.